


Things you can taste, like fear and cinnamon

by thought



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Alana Maxwell and the terrible horrible no good very bad childhood, Gen, Maxwell's justifiable hatred of hospitals, Occasionally Kepler is ok at pretending to be a person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-05 23:05:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13398177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: Maxwell is a tiny bit shot, Jacobi is a tiny bit concussed, and Kepler is a tiny bit human, which isn't necessarily a good thing.





	Things you can taste, like fear and cinnamon

The first time Maxwell gets shot they're in Joberg, organizing a tragic accident for the director of Goddard's spaceflight competition in Russia, because it turns out when you've got backing coming through the government, the Bratva, Bratva Lite, and 'I can't believe it's not Bratva', you actually start to pose a real threat to Goddard's mission to go where no capitalist has gone before.

The accident goes off without a hitch, but then there's an issue with the police that mostly involves SI-5 being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong illegal weaponry and which is probably going to be used as an SI object lesson in 'your ribs really aren't worth the satisfaction of delivering that witty one-liner'. Whatever. If Kepler had wanted a team that knew when to keep their mouths shut he should have started recruiting direct from the Air Force like everybody else at GF. He'd also have to take himself off the team.

Probably they could have dealt with the police without any bloodshed, but as soon as they're in the police car Jacobi is, well, himself, so one of the officers starts getting creative with his insults, at which point Maxwell has to correct him on his use of scripture (because she likes being right very slightly more than she hates everything associated with her childhood); and naturally the officer turns his attention to her with a series of threats (most of them sexual, most of them with weird religious overtones, all of them entirely unimaginative), which leads to Jacobi trying to use his handcuffs as a weapon and getting aggressively restrained by the second cop; at which point Kepler asks, innocuously, if anyone wants to play I Spy. The third and final officer pulls a gun, which in fairness is a pretty understandable reaction to the deeply unsettling way Kepler can ask those sorts of things like he's not about to ruin your life. Maxwell probably didn't need to critique Officer Number 3's sloppy gun-handling-- actually, yes, she really did, because "Jesus Christ, don't you have to pass some sort of test to become a cop?".

Anyway, long story short, it's fine. They deal with it. Jacobi takes a selfie with Kepler in front of the burning police car and the reds and oranges of the sunset mix with the smoke until they're framed against a landscape on fire. Jacobi's looking up at Kepler, trying to explain how to set the camera timer, and Kepler's hand is caught in frame covering the curve where Jacobi's neck meets his shoulder, fingertips almost grazing his throat. Kepler had in actuality been moving to throw his arm around Jacobi's shoulders in the uncomfortable comradery pose of every multi-person photograph ever taken, but Kepler's finger had slipped and hit the camera button on the phone just at the right second. Jacobi is smirking, carefree, and everything looks like it is on fire and Kepler is smiling like he's been waiting for this for a very long time. The image belongs in some sacred text somewhere in the back of a library, the glory days before the fall of an empire.

Maxwell thinks all of this while she's half unconscious from blood loss, sitting in the gravel at the side of the road because hey, maybe 'celebratory selfie time' should come _after_ 'make sure all the angry cops are really super dead and also unarmed time'. They're all super dead now. Maxwell made sure of it just before she decided the ground was a much better place to be than anything approaching upright.

Kepler suggests they take her to a hospital, so she has a fifteen minute argument about that, which she loses, of course. Jacobi's on her side, because he's a good friend like that and probably because he feels guilty. He's good at that, even if it's never over the right things.

"It's a graze," she says, dragging her feet as they cross the parking lot toward the hospital doors. "Some Polysporin, some gauze, some tape and I'm fine." She's holding on to Jacobi for balance because the world is still a little wobbly. He's got a matching pair of black eyes. "Do you know how many questions we're going to raise if we go in there?"

"Fewer than if you passed out in the airport," Kepler replies. "Our IDs are still good, there's no reason to take unnecessary risks."

"Like this one?"

"This is not a debate," Kepler reminds her, and strides ahead, making them both hurry to keep up. Her side where the bullet had hit screams at her over the sudden movement. Jacobi, who has been uncharacteristically quiet throughout the whole argument, squeezes her hand.

Inside, the waiting room is filled with crying children and what she's pretty sure is two groups of rival gang members glaring at each other from opposite corners. Kepler leaves her and Jacobi in a pair of hard plastic chairs and goes up to the desk to get the paperwork. Jacobi leans his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. She recognizes his breathing patterns-- he's better at the breathing exercises than she is, and she can count along with the rise and fall of his chest.

"You ok?" she asks.

"Uh huh," he says. "My face hurts, but that'll go away with an icepack and a couple Aspirin."

Kepler returns, sitting down on her other side and handing her a pen along with the stack of forms. Maxwell starts filling out her current identity's information, and Kepler leans around her to tap Jacobi's shoulder.

"Look at me," he says. Jacobi shifts in the chair.

"It's fine."

"I'd really rather a medical professional made that call."

"I barely even blacked out. Nausea, head ache, a bit dizzy, but nothing beyond that. There's no reason to draw even more attention to us so that a doctor can tell me what I already know."

Kepler folds up the second set of papers he's holding. "Let me know if anything gets worse," he says. "That's not a request."

"Oh, so you listen to *him* when he doesn't want to seek medical attention," Maxwell mutters. "When did you even have the time to get concussed?"

"You say that like I did it intentionally."

"Children," Kepler says, and Maxwell bristles, pressing so hard on the papers that the pen goes right through the page. 

Jacobi leans in to her shoulder, grounding her in the present simply by virtue of his existence. When she looks at Kepler he doesn't look apologetic, but he doesn't look satisfied, either, which is the important part. God, working with SI-5 has made her far more cognizant of her triggers and weaknesses than she ever wanted to be.

They wait two hours to see a doctor. Jacobi starts to drift off on her shoulder a few times and she shakes him awake automatically.

The third time this happens he mutters, "I'm going to throw up on you if you don't let me sleep," and Kepler rustles the extra admission paperwork warningly.

Maxwell had gone through the excruciating slide between numb adrenaline shock to steady physical input that can be ignored on the way to the hospital and during the first few minutes there, so her mind is free to focus on the shrill, overlapping voices of upset children, the flickering of the light above the admissions desk, the smell of industrial cleaner and, more faintly, mass-produced hospital food. Someone's phone keeps going off with no pattern, sometimes chiming five times in a row, others only once in twenty minutes.

"Do you want to play a game?” Kepler offers, and she knows he's trying to be kind but the suggestion mostly makes her want to punch his face in.

"I do not," she says, evenly, and then, acutely aware that she is opening up her ribcage and handing him a scalpel, "So, Major. You said on the plane this wasn't your first time in South Africa. What happened last time you were here?"

"Dr. Maxwell," he says, and yes, that's good, that's a reminder she shouldn't need to cling to. "Are you asking me to tell you a story?"

Jacobi makes a wounded noise and she reaches up to put a hand over his face. "Yes," she says. "Yes I am."

His story takes 45 minutes and is probably half falsehoods, but it gives her mind something to focus on and the familiar cadence of his voice is a small fragment of silk in a storm of sandpaper.

When her name is called they both go in with her. They don't ask, which she thinks she should resent, but they all know that if they had asked she would have had to say no. Not talking about their weirdly intimate relationships is really what makes them a great team in the end. No communication is key.

She perches on the edge of a cot with Jacobi and Kepler bracketing her in more plastic chairs, the murmur of other people's private conversations uncomfortably clear through the curtains. Her heart is pounding frantically, her breaths even only through sheer stubbornness. Her nails have left imprints in her palms from where she's kept her hands clenched. The pain of her injury is becoming more difficult to ignore, blood starting to seep through the makeshift bandage. Her brain is overclocking her body and there isn't a single thing she can do about it.

When the nurse comes in Maxwell is polite and professional and distant and her voice doesn't shake at all. The nurse's fingers at her throat and then at her wrist feel like a betrayal, like cheating in a game where everyone should know the rules. She puts an IV in, which seems like overkill. Jacobi watches her intently while she does it, which makes Maxwell feel a bit better. There are still plenty of ways the saline could have been compromised, but at least if Maxwell dies it won't be from sheer stupidity.

The plastic tubing that snakes from the back of her hand brushes up against her arm when she moves and she has to clasp her hands together to stop herself from yanking the needle out. The back of her hand feels fragile, like one wrong twitch and her skin will tear right off.

"Alana, look at me," Kepler says, quietly, and usually when he uses her first name it brings a fundamental sense of existential contentment or a numb sort of unquestioning terror -- the kinds of feelings that are easy to understand and useful in holding together her sense of self -- but now it just feels like another betrayal.

She does, of course. He forces eye contact for an uncomfortably long minute before deliberately glancing away, leaving her to let her gaze wander over the chipped yellow paint on the wall, the scuff marks on the tiled floor, the streak of dirt on Kepler's pant leg. Just because his method lacked subtlety doesn't mean it doesn't work.

The doctor who comes in is young. Maybe Jacobi's age. That's somehow worse. He could be her peer, speaks the same language of young enough and smart enough and well-paid enough that the friends you lost along the way don't matter. And yet she is the one sitting up on display like a faulty science experiment, another number on his chart.

She speaks to him with the same sense of distance. Perfectly clear, perfectly articulate. She has only seen a medical professional twice since she was a child and simply an object to be discussed by her parents and doctors, but she still has the scripts carefully memorized, tone and phrasing and comfortable, slightly bored facial expressions all gathered up in a folder and ready to be used.

He asks how it happened, of course, and the lie comes easily, just like it always has. He has her lay down while he cleans the wound and puts in the stitches. She keeps very still. He doesn't bother explaining each step, doesn't give warning for the first jab of the needle. She can't see what he's doing. Watches Jacobi instead, the absent way he rubs at the place on his wrist where the handcuffs chafed, hidden by his jacket, the flick of his thumb against the spinner ring she'd bought him when they'd been stuck in Heathrow for twelve hours, the still-even breaths that make it clear he's still nauseous. The doctor's hands are warm, which is just another reminder that it's an actual person touching her, seeing the way her flesh has failed her and fixing what she can't.

Kepler slides his chair closer to the side of the cot, somehow doing so noiselessly. He puts a hand on her ankle just before the first splash of disinfectant hits the edges of the wound and leaves it there the whole time, a warm, steady weight that says "I'm here," and "you're safe," and "I gave you an order. You did not choose this."

She's shaking by the time the final strip of tape has been pressed down and the doctor's gloves are snapping briskly into the trash. Her brain has gone to that muffled, empty place that it goes when strangers are touching her and she's not allowed to fight back, so sitting up and realizing she's freezing cold comes as a surprise. The room hadn't been cold when they'd come in, and it's a bit too late for shock to set in.

She's been told to wait for a nurse to give her care instructions and officially release her, but Kepler leaves as soon as the doctor does, pushing himself stiffly out of the chair, wincing when he turns his head too quickly (whiplash, definitely) and striding away with a brief instruction to meet him outside.

Jacobi drapes the thin hospital blanket over her shoulders and holds her icy hands between his own, for all the good it will do. She gives him one of the painkillers from the tiny bubble packet the doctor left to hold her over until she can fill the proscription. His resistance is token at best, and he tips forward in the chair to rest his forehead against her shoulder with a shaky breath after he's swallowed it dry. She takes the opportunity to brush a hand through his hair in search of the source of his concussion. There's a lump on the side of his head, behind his ear, but no blood. Jacobi's not used to head pain. Unlike her and Kepler, he's never had a migraine, and headaches are rare occurrences.

The nurse comes in eventually and Jacobi straightens up with a wince. The proscription seems unnecessarily strong, the nurse's instructions for care of the wound far too cautious for what it is. She pulls the IV out and slaps a cheerful cartoon Band-Aid on the back of Maxwell's hand.

"Sorry," the nurse says, amused. "There have been a lot of children today."

Finally, she's allowed to leave. She pushes herself up from the cot, takes a minute to blink away the black spots that spring up in front of her eyes, then goes about untangling herself from the blanket even as she can feel goosebumps rising on her arms from the cold. Jacobi offers his arm as they step out into the hall, but she's had enough painkillers that she's perfectly capable of walking on her own.

Kepler comes around the side of the building just as they exit, and there is no goddamn way he wasn't lurking, waiting to coordinate their arrivals. He looks... pleased. Maxwell is immediately concerned.

"Why are you smiling?" Jacobi asks, suspiciously.

"Am I not allowed to simply... enjoy the feeling of sunlight on my face?" Kepler drawls.

"No," Maxwell says immediately. She's already feeling better just being outside.

"I had an... appointment to keep," Kepler says. "It was very lucrative."

"Do we need to leave before they find the body?" Jacobi asks, at the same time Maxwell says

"I knew I wasn't _really_ hurt badly enough to need a hospital!"

"You were bleeding out in the fucking dirt, Maxwell," Jacobi snaps, turning on her. "Jesus Christ, I should have guessed you'd be like this."

"Like what, Daniel?" she retorts. "Did you think my professionalism was just going to go out the window because I was injured? I know I haven't been on the team that long, but give me some credit."

"That's not what I meant," he says, evenly.

"I was just saying," Maxwell says, ignoring him, "that I should have realized you had ulterior motives for dragging us to the hospital, Major."

"Pretty sure he would have dragged you to the hospital either way," Jacobi bites out.

"No," says Kepler, mildly. "I wouldn't have."

Jacobi makes a faint noise in the back of his throat, then turns and walks away fast, hands clenched behind his back, jaw hard. She hopes he's going to call a cab or hotwire a car.

She glances over at Kepler and straightens up, breathes through the pain and the gentle fog of the painkillers. "Thank you," she says, quietly. Kepler nods.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway hospitals are terrible thanks for coming to my ted talk


End file.
